


We’ve Got a Mystery to Solve, So Be Ready For Your Act

by Meatball42



Series: Rare Pairs [70]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Scooby Doo - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Scooby Doo Fusion, Bechdel Test Pass, Clint is Velma, F/F, M/M, Natasha is here because she feels like it, Recreational Drug Use, Steve is here to look pretty and punch things, Team Fluff, The quest for a stable paycheck, Thor and Bruce go where the winds take them, Web-based advertising, and in charge, lots of flirting, some semblance of a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-27 18:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17167229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Clint, Natasha, Steve, Thor, and Bruce of Mystery Inc. get their biggest client yet when they are hired by Stark Industries. Will the team manage to solve the mystery, make a match or two, and secure a tax-qualified, defined-contribution pension account? Or will the various chemicals they've imbibed produce only chaos?





	We’ve Got a Mystery to Solve, So Be Ready For Your Act

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> Community prompt 258 was for a flirty Scooby-Doo AU, which I can't believe I wrote.
> 
> This is a fusion of sorts, so there are still enhanced/magical elements in play.

1.

“Alright gang.” Clint rapped on the inside wall of the Mystery Machine to get everyone’s attention. Steve turned down the radio, Natasha pulled out her earbuds, Thor swallowed his Twinkie and didn’t pick up a new one, and Bruce put down his lighter. “Here’s the deal: we’ve been hired by Stark Industries to check out a potential manifestation in their Manhattan facility. I don’t have to tell you guys how big a deal Stark Industries is, so we all gotta-”

“How big a deal is Stark Industries?” Thor asked.

“Big, big deal,” Natasha answered, inspecting her nails.

“Stark Industries came up with the serum they gave my unit in the Army,” Steve said from the driver’s seat.

“Good innovators,” Bruce commented, eyes on the roof of the van. “Even if all they make is…” He mimed an explosion with his hands, with accompanying sound effects.

The van rattled over a pothole. Thor slumped over.

“Exactly.” Clint glared at his teammates, although from his seat bolted to the floor just behind the center console, only Bruce and Thor could actually see him, and they weren’t paying attention. “So I shouldn’t have to explain how much this job could be worth to us in terms of money _and_ prestige.”

“Lotssss of money,” Natasha said dryly.

“And lots of prestige.” Steve grinned.

“So maybe we lay off the pot after eight pm?” Clint suggested.

Bruce and Thor sat up straight and stared at him in shock.

“Ha ha ha,” Natasha said, only somewhat resembling actual laughter.

Steve rolled down his window.

 

 

2.

The Mystery Inc. team filtered into the lobby of Stark Tower, Manhattan, at 9:05 pm on a Saturday night. The email from the CEO’s office had informed them (well, Clint) that the company was shutting the building down early for them. The entire building, which encompassed over thirty different businesses, a variety of living spaces, and a few confidential floors leased to different government agencies where they would have to sign multiple confidentiality forms should their investigation lead them inside.

“So basically, we just have tonight,” Clint summed up and they waited in the lobby. They clumped together in the intimidatingly classy space, not a one used to such a level of corporate glamor. “We gotta bring our A-games, alright guys?”

“Don’t worry so much, Clint,” Steve told him, resting one huge hand on Clint’s shoulder. “We’ve got this. Right, everyone?”

“So, so right,” Natasha said, poking at her smartphone.

“This phantasm won’t know what hit it!” Thor declared.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Clint sighed.

Bruce just stared at the ceiling, his glasses sliding around on his face.

An elevator dinged, and Tony Stark himself exited it, dressed in a band t-shirt and painted-on designer jeans. He walked toward them with his arms stretched wide. “Gentlemen, and Ms. Romanoff! I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you here.” He walked up to Steve and took Steve’s offered hand in both of his own, standing too close and looking starry-eyed. “Please, call me Tony.”

The snappily-dressed woman walking behind Stark, her skyscraper heels clicking angrily against the marble floor, didn’t look like she was quite as happy to see them. Pepper Potts walked straight up to Clint and handed him a clipboard and a pen.

Clint quickly signed all the required lines and handed the clipboard back, only barely bowing in terror as he did so. “Thank you very much, Ms. Potts. We won’t let you down.”

“I’m sure. Mr. Barton.” She gave Stark a dirty look and headed straight back to the elevator.

“Wow,” Natasha breathed, staring after her, glossy lips open.

“No, no no no.” Clint rushed over to her, standing between her and Ms. Potts even as Natasha craned her neck to look around him. “We have a job to do! Good impressions, remember?”

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that,” Natasha said dryly, tossing a glance over to where Stark was trying to climb Steve like a tree. “Not to mention… I think Thor dug up one of the ornamental trees.”

“What?!” Clint spun around, nearly tearing his hair out as he rushed after Thor. “Put that back!”

 

 

3.

“I’m a huge fan of your webseries,” Tony said breathily as they rode up the elevator. He stood very close to Steve and looked up at him in a way most men tried to pretend they weren’t.

Steve smiled. It was always nice to meet a fan. “That’s kind of you to say. I know Clint puts a lot of work into those.”

“He’s not the only one,” Tony muttered under his breath, eyes glazing over as he inspected every inch of Steve’s exposed biceps. He probably thought Steve couldn’t hear him, but the serum had enhanced his hearing, too.

“Is that why you chose to hire us, rather than a New York-based mystery agency?”

“What?” Tony shook his head. “Oh, yeah. I only hire the best, and you are… certainly the best.”

“You want to tell us about the case?” Natasha interjected.

Steve glanced over at the rest of his team. “Didn’t Clint explain in the van?” he said mildly.

“Like I was listening.”

Clint glared at the back of Natasha’s head.

“I, too, admit that I found myself distracted.” Thor shook his head sadly.

“We have a case?” Bruce asked.

Clint smacked his own forehead.

Luckily, Tony laughed. “That’s so great! I love that you guys stay in character the whole time! I was really hoping for the full experience.”

“Oh, we’ll give you the full experience,” Steve said quietly.

Tony shivered, full-body. Clint groaned.

 

 

4.

They split up. Thor and Bruce went to the office areas, where they quickly took to digging through desks for snacks.

“You’d think there’d be better pickings,” Bruce commented. “Back when I had an office job, I practically lived at my desk. A company like this? You gotta imagine they’re pulling all-nighters. Might as well be Wall Street, the kind of pressure they’re under here.”

“At home, I always kept a whole fowl in my room, in case I required a light repast,” Thor agreed.

“Stark Industries employs a full-time chef and catering team for the comfort and ease of its employees,” a voice announced from the walls.

Thor spun around, drawing his warhammer, and knocked over a cubicle.

“Who’s there?!” Bruce shouted. “Show yourself.”

“Once again,” the voice said with an air of irritation, “I am Jarvis, Stark Industries’ automated intelligence assistance. And no, Dr. Banner, you may not discuss my code with me.”

Bruce closed his mouth.

“Lead on to the kitchens, honorable assistant!” Thor shouted.

With a staticky sigh, the AI led them to the kitchen.

 

 

5.

On the corporate level, Natasha and Clint were methodically searching each room in a grid format. Clint inspected every inch with his eyes, taking notes whenever something seemed to be amiss. Natasha used her array of scanners, bugs, and implements to identify any questionable traces.

“I really think this could be it for us, Nat,” Clint bubbled over after a while. “Our shot at the bigtime. If we solve a mystery for Stark Industries, everyone is gonna want to hire us. I’m talking the bigtime! _Corporate contracts_ big. You know how many weird things happen in WalMarts? This could be our shot!”

“Clint, you are the only one in Mystery Inc. who gives a shit about the bigtime.”

Clint spun around to face her. “Are you kidding me? Don’t tell me you want to drive around in Thor’s brother’s old van for the rest of your life!”

“I don’t plan to,” Natasha brushed him off. “But I like what I’m doing now. I could do something else, and I probably will someday. But I also don’t see salvation in terms of a paycheck.”

“It’s not just a _paycheck,_ ” Clint said for the thousandth time. “It’s investment opportunities. Stock options. Health insurance, for Christ’s sake! Benefits, imagine benefits?”

“It would benefit you to shut the hell up.”

“Natasha.” Clint said very seriously. Natasha turned to him, snapping her gum. “Natasha, I grew up in the circus. Literally all I want out of life is a 401k. Some goddamn security. Is that too much to ask?”

Natasha popped a bubble. Then, she took a deep breath and let out a very long sigh.

“Fine. I’ll do my best.” She turned around and walked out of the office.

“You’ll- what?” Clint called after her. “Natasha, what are you- hey, hey Natasha! One of your thingamabobbers is flashing. What does that-”

There was a sound behind him, and Clint spun around-

 

 

6.

“You know, I’ve solved a few mysteries myself,” Tony commented. He stepped over an exhaust shaft and walked backward for a few steps, until the dimly-lit passage turned a hard right. “Most of them have been the, you know, nuclear mechanics, propulsion physics, theoretical space-travel kind, but those are mysteries, right?”

Steve leaned over him as they pressed close to get by a protruding pipe. “You’re practically a Mystery Inc. member already.”

“Yeah,” Tony breathed. “I, uh. I've read up on all your cases. I really liked the video you guys posted on your site, about the case with the oil company where the CEO was trying to scam the insurance investigators.”

“I remember that case,” Steve reminisced. “I had to fight an ancient lake spirit in hundred-degree heat. Got covered in oil, too. Good times.”

“Yeah,” Tony squeaked.

He led them to a bright red doorway marked ‘Engineers Only.’ “Hey look, we’re here. I’ve got the keys right- oh, sorry,” he cried as his hand brushed along Steve’s midsection. “We're kinda-”

“Close,” Steve murmured into his ear. “Yeah.”

Tony gulped.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Steve reached into the back pocket of Tony’s jeans and carefully pulled out the key ring. He reached around Tony and deposited the keys in the other man’s shaking hand. “It's a tight space, but we'll get in there.”

“Uh… yeah…”

Tony managed to unlock the door, and they stepped into a small, dark closet with a few odd tools on a shelf. Tony pressed his hand to a seemingly random spot on the far wall, and it slid open to reveal a much wider and taller room, filled with blue screens and taped-off access panels. The pair stepped through and the door closed behind them. When Steve checked, it looked like just another shiny metal wall.

“This is one of the access points for the arc reactor casing. The arc reactor is my proprietary tech that powers this building and part of Manhattan.”

“I read about it,” Steve said, looking around at the strange technologies built into the tower. “Is it true you wired the Tower into the West Hudson _and_ Morningside Heights grids so you could provide cheap electricity not only to the Upper West side, but all the way up through Fort George and parts of Inwood?”

Tony looked less than pleased for the first time that night. “What’s it to you?” 

Steve smiled. “I may not know much about nuclear mechanics or propulsion physics, but I do know that energy inefficiencies disproportionately affect lower-income neighborhoods. And I know that you must have had to rewire half of Manhattan to get that electricity that far uptown.”

Tony fidgeted, looking away. “The Tower puts out a lot of energy. It was the safest option.”

“You’re blushing.” Steve stepped closer to Tony so he could run a finger down one pink cheek and under that tucked chin. He smiled wider as the blush deepened. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” he said quietly. “Especially not for doing good. I've read up on you, too, you know. Solving mysteries is what I do.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony breathed, staring right up into Steve’s eyes. “Tell me: what did you figure out about this mystery?”

Steve tilted his head forward, and the lights went out.

 

 

7.

“I don’t do this,” Pepper moaned, jerking as Natasha’s hand slid up her skirt. “Oh! I- Never- in the office-”

“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” Natasha said into the CEO’s ear, then nibbled gently on the lobe.

“Oh, Natasha-” Pepper tugged the other woman above her on the couch and clutched closer, sinking her manicured fingers into Natasha’s hair. With one hand she carded through the long tresses, and on the other she brushed Natasha’s undercut against the grain.

Something crashed in the hallway and Pepper flinched. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” Natasha got Pepper’s blouse unbuttoned and shimmied down the couch, and for a while the only sounds were wet sucking, some moans, and a few whispered pleas.

A sibilant hissing sound seemed to echo from far away, and there was a roar like thunder.

Pepper sat up, knocking Natasha’s head into her sternum. “That can’t be good.”

“Hey.” Natasha kept the CEO from getting up with a hand wrapped around her ribcage. She turned her big emerald eyes on Pepper, and Pepper couldn’t help but listen. “My teammates know what they’re doing. Right now, they may be engaging with some very serious supernatural paraphernalia. The smart thing to do is stay here, where it’s safe, and let them do what they do best.”

Pepper nodded, but her eyes flicked back to her office door.

Natasha sat up and slowly and carefully put one knee on either side of Pepper’s legs. She’d already taken her pants off, and Pepper’s gaze was drawn to her deep violet underwear and the trim midsection bared by her shirt, already shoved up to the bottom of her bra. With Pepper’s eyes on her, Natasha leaned back and dragged her shirt up and off her body. Her bangs fell over her face as she looked down at Pepper.

Pepper’s breath was coming fast. “I suppose… we should… let the professionals do their jobs,” she managed to say.

Natasha grinned. “Oh, I’m about to.”

 

 

8.

When Clint woke up, he was in one of the softest beds he’d ever imagined. It took a few moments for him to come fully to consciousness because of that fact. Once he was awake, he panicked.

Unknown bedroom, minimalistic decor, nobody else present. Floor-to-ceiling windows over there, view of buildings, specifically the Chrysler building- still in Stark Tower? Three hours after sunrise, no pain in his body. Unknown soft pajamas.

“-morning, Mr. Barton,” the artificial intelligence, Jarvis, was saying from the walls. “The time is 8:17am. You are on the 67th floor of Stark Tower. Your team is in the communal kitchen two left turns from the door to your right.”

Clint rushed out, sharp eyes flashing around him for any danger, but he reached the kitchen the AI told him about without any attacks. Indeed, they were all there.

Thor and Bruce were plowing through a stack of pancakes nearly as tall as Bruce. Natasha was sitting suspiciously close to Ms. Potts at the breakfast bar, eating matching yogurt parfaits. Tony Stark was sitting on Steve’s lap on an armchair in the breakfast nook, both looking like they'd been through a very pleasant and sexy tornado.

Clint blinked, looked closer. Thor’s hair was on end, indicative of lightning used in the last few hours. Bruce was literally eating faster than Thor, shovelling fluffy, golden-brown carbs into his mouth, so his extra-human abilities must have come to use as well. Natasha wasn’t just sitting close to Ms. Potts because she was a shameless flirt; she had an arm around the back of Ms. Potts’ chair that was distinctly protective. And Steve had multiple bruises down the right side of his face and neck, and a long, nearly-healed cut on his arm, exposed by the stupid tight t-shirts he always had to be wearing.

Clint’s team had fought a supernatural something, while he’d been knocked out.

“Did we get it? Is everyone alright?”

“The foe has been vanquished!” Thor tried to announce.

Clint’s hearing aids were not up to the task of translating Norse-accented English through two layers of pancake, though, so Natasha answered. “It was a curse, calling angry spirits. We located the anchoring objects, smashed them, and exorcised the spirits.”

“It was super hot,” Stark interjected, tucking his face into Steve’s neck. Steve smiled mildly, but Clint knew every iteration of Steve’s mild smiles, and that was definitely his ‘punched a bad guy and laid a groupie’ smile.

“And we have enough evidence for a civil suit against the originator of the curse,” Ms. Potts concluded with a shark-like grin.

Clint took a small step away. No wonder Natasha liked her. Nat always had an instinct for hidden violence.

“Hammer’s going down this time,” Stark crowed.

“The hammer will come down!” Thor cried, definitely not understanding what Stark was talking about.

“The thing is,” Natasha said slowly, commanding nearly all the attention in the room- of course, Bruce kept eating. “If we want to be available to testify… we’ll have to stay in New York.”

“We’ll give you a stellar recommendation,” Stark said, nominally to Natasha but actually to Steve’s left ear. “Fifty stars.”

Steve turned his head so they were speaking directly into each others’ faces. “Out of how many?” Steve asked, looking from Tony’s eyes to his mouth.

"As many as you want.”

“It would be difficult for us to secure housing and work in New York,” Natasha went on, ignoring the developing soft-core in the corner. “None of us are used to living in a city.”

Steve, busy sucking face, either didn’t hear or didn’t care enough to refute her.

“What can we do to help?” Ms. Potts asked. She sounded just a bit dazed. Clint took another step away from Natasha’s range of influence.

“Well, in this group, we have a former nuclear physicist who really just needs some legitimate meds, and a guy who speaks pretty much every language known to man. Then there’s me. I’m trained in counter-espionage, bodyguarding, glad-handing, and I make a mean martini. Steve has your CTO there wrapped around his little finger, which I’m sure you’ll consider qualification enough, and Clint…”

Natasha met Clint’s eyes over Ms. Potts’s shoulder, and her lip twitched up at the corner. He smiled back, warm and secure in the knowledge that his best friend had his back.

“He can do anything. Give him some authority and I guarantee he'll run the tightest ship in New York. He’s a real whipcracker. A real ballbuster in charge.”

Clint couldn’t even bring himself to glare.

“I'm sure we can find something.” Ms. Potts looked thoughtful.

Stark detached his face from Steve’s long enough to say, “Make him head of our YouTube channel, it really doesn't matter, they're staying.”

“Well, that’s settled then,” Ms. Potts agreed, pulling a tablet across the bar and getting to work. Clint wasn’t sure how she managed with her nails like that, but hey, maybe she had extra-human abilities, too. It wouldn’t be the first time. “These lawsuits usually take a while. How do one year corporate contracts sound? We can talk benefits after breakfast.”

Clint cleared his throat around a sudden lump, and smiled. "Sounds like a good start.”


End file.
